Serial comma

Do you put a comma after 'and'?  Do I like apples, oranges, and pears, or apples, oranges and pears?  The comma appearing before the and has its own name, a serial comma.  The upshot is that in American English you normally use it, and otherwise you generally don't.  Here's a funny example of a case to use it in any language:

Use of the serial comma can sometimes remove ambiguity. Consider the possibly apocryphal book dedication quoted by Teresa Nielsen Hayden:

To my parents, Ayn Rand and God.